The Night Angel

by T. Davis Bunn

  “My mother would be utterly delighted to see it. I would very much like to show it to her.”

  “I should be grateful if you would take the infant’s portrait with you as well.”

  “Do you not care to offer it yourself to the child’s family?”

  “I do not know them, nor they me. I should think it may mean more coming from your mother, the family friend who cared enough to suggest it in the first place.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “You are as wise as you are lovely.”

  “Thank you. I must—

  A faint sound came through the open front door. Only then did she realize she had been hearing it for some time. A carriage of some kind . . .

  Nathan stepped outside. Serafina followed and saw the flicker of torchlight. Across the square, a small two-wheeled carriage had pulled up in front of the church, led by horsemen bearing torches. The church’s night watchman stood with his lantern hung from a long pole and addressed the leading horseman. Serafina saw the watchman point across the square to where they stood.

  The horseman saw them then, spun his horse about, and shouted a command that carried across the square.

  Serafina gathered her skirts and rushed down the stairs and across the night-dampened cobblestones as the horse pounded toward her. Falconer!

  The horseman called out, “You are Miss Gavi?”

  “Yes! Where is Falconer?”

  In response the man turned and waved the carriage on. Instantly the driver cracked his whip and urged his two horses forward. The other horseman followed close behind.

  Serafina and Nathan ran to meet them. Behind her she heard her father’s voice calling from their front door.

  The carriage drew up alongside her. Beside the driver sat a woman in a road-stained cloak. The driver was a burly man in a round-brimmed hat and a beard that spilled down over his chest. The woman was lovely despite the fatigue that strained her face. She looked at Serafina for a moment, then simply nodded her head.

  Falconer awoke from his fitful slumber wondering what had changed. The absence of constantly dripping rain was as unexpected as it was welcome. Falconer dipped his hands into the water bucket and washed his face. He looked up, and sunlight speared the roof through the same holes where rain had fallen. Dozens of brilliant miniature pillars transformed the jail cell. Falconer stepped to the center of the room, standing in a puddle he had avoided up to now, and lifted his face to the light. He reveled in the blinding light and warmth.

  He remained there until the jailer’s keys announced his arrival. “Done turned nice for a change.”

  Falconer lowered his head and reached for the Book on his ledge. “I am a man born for waves and wind and infinite horizons. I have wondered if Paul himself ever yearned for earthly freedom while still praising God.”

  Carl had taken to stopping by when his shift was over, and again before he started. He came into the cell, dragged over a three-legged stool, and seated himself. “I reckon if a man ain’t tempted, he ain’t strong.”

  Falconer found himself chuckling as he sat on the corner of the bunk closest to the cell door.

  “I say something funny?”

  “No, brother.” Falconer opened the Book to continue their reading from Philippians. “You said something wise.”

  Falconer’s greatest sense of freedom came during these times of study. He had no idea how long they had been seated there when the other jailer clanked his way across the brick floor. The other jailer demanded, “Carl, what you still doing here?”

  Carl was bent over with his forehead against the cell bars so he could read the Bible that Falconer held toward him. He replied without turning around, “What I do with my free time ain’t nobody’s business but my own.”

  The other jailer had a girth so large it spilled across his belt in back as well as in front. Usually loath to shift his bulk from the chair in the front room, he now said, “Folks is talking, is all.”

  “What folks might that be?”

  “Folks who got a mind to take away your meal ticket if ’n you don’t let the prisoners be.” The jailer wheeled about and started back. “You know what’s good for you, you’ll mosey on home and forget this here nonsense. You got a hankering for religion, there’s churches all over town.”

  Carl waited until the stout door leading out of the jail had slammed shut. He then lifted his head and said softly, “Something ain’t right. I better go see what’s doing.”

  “Carl,” Falconer called, “don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”

  The jailer rose from his stool. “Ain’t nobody ever done nothing for me my whole life long. Long as I can remember, I been classed as no ’count. Then here you come, talking to me like I was somebody good.”

  “Which you are. And I don’t want to see you in danger.”

  The jailer turned and left without another word.

  Jeb stood in the shadows by the corner porch of the courthouse. The front steps descended into an unpaved sunlit square. This porch was used by court officials out for a breath of air, and it opened onto an alley. The jail blocked the far end. A wooden structure housing lawyers and land agents was tucked up close to the opposite side. The alley was shaded from the sun, but the heat was still fierce.

  Jeb was studying the slat of empty sky overhead when the courthouse door opened. The large jailer announced, “Carl’s finally letting your man be and coming out.”

  “That’s good, Fred. You delivered just like you said.”

  The jailer tugged at his broad belt, clanking his keys. “You think mebbe I could get paid now?”

  “You get paid the same as the last time you asked me,” Jeb said, still talking to the sky. “You ever seen the like of this weather? One week it’s winter. The next it’s raining like Noah’s flood. Now it’s so hot we done jumped from April to August.”

  The keys jangled again. “I been taking an awful risk on your account.”

  “And I’m paying you in good solid gold for your troubles.” Jeb dropped his gaze and gave the jailer his empty grin. The one that showed anyone who looked that he wasn’t going to be moved unless it was feet first. “You got twenty of my dollars clanking in your pocket already. So here’s what you gotta do. Same as last time. Nothing’s changed. You clear out the other jailer. You let my man slip into the back. In and out. Two minutes. When that happens, you get your fifty in gold. And not before.”

  “Th-there ain’t gone be no gunfire,” the jailer stammered. His jowls trembled below his face with worry. “Your man shoots off a gun, we gonna have ten kinds of trouble.”

  “No gun,” Jeb agreed, though in truth he had no idea how this Vladimir was going to handle his little chore. “Now you get yourself back on inside and make sure the other jailer’s done gone home.”

  He waited until Fred jangled his way back down the alley and disappeared into the jail before heading out into the sunlight. Jeb patted his hat down more firmly on his head.

  The black-clad stranger was where Jeb had left him, leaning against the wall next to the hotel entrance, with Cody for company. Jeb didn’t like the man any more now than he did when they had first met, but he had two hundred fifty of the man’s gold dollars in his pocket, and the pledge of twice that amount again. Vladimir had promised to take care of both the jailer and the miner, agreeing to Jeb’s demands with the languid ease of a man who had no intention of paying. Which was why Cody remained on guard beside him. Just keeping the man honest. And because Cody was there, so was Joyner. The enormous miner and his two remaining men stood farther down the porch, watching with sullen glares. Vladimir paid his watchers no more mind than he did the heat.

  Vladimir did not turn from his inspection of the sunlight and the empty street as he asked Jeb, “What did you find?”

  “Our man says the other jailer is finally getting fixed to leave.”

  Cody observed, “It was me, I’d be out of that place ten minutes before my shift was done. What’s he doing in there anyway?”

 
Jeb was reluctant to say it, the words sounded that strange inside his brain. “He’s reading the Bible.”

  The words brought both Vladimir and Cody around. Cody demanded, “Say that again?”

  Joyner’s nail-studded boots thudded across the porch. He was hot and impatient and ready for a fight. “You best not be trying any more of your tricks, Jeb Saunders.”

  Jeb ignored the miner entirely. He said to his brother, “The jailer’s been in there with Falconer all this time. The two of them just sitting and reading from the Book.” Jeb shrugged. “That’s what our man’s saying, anyway.”

  “This thing is growing crazier by the hour.” Cody pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “Whoever thought it’d be this tough to kill just one man, in jail at that?”

  “You better not be trying any tricks with my gold,” Joyner warned again. “I got my eye on the whole lot of you.”

  Vladimir turned back to inspecting the sunlight and the dust. “We have company.”

  When Carl came back inside the jail, his face gleamed with more than perspiration. “There’s something funny going on.”

  Falconer had faced danger so often he could not even count the times. Now, though, his highly tuned senses gave off none of the usual signals. Instead, he felt strangely calm. He looked around the cell. Blocked in on all sides, defenseless—as good as having his hands tied behind his back. Yet he felt no fear. Was this the day?

  “They’s a group of men down by the hotel. One of them had words with old Fred. I didn’t see money change hands, but I can’t think of any other reason why Fred would mosey down the alley in this heat.”

  Falconer only half heard the words. He realized with an idle curiosity that Fred was the other jailer’s name. But his entire being seemed focused on something else. Another voice. A feeling of peace, an impression that someone else would do whatever was required.

  “Last night I followed a stranger down to the hotel. Man all in black. He talked to others. They’s trouble. I may not know much, but I know trouble when I see it, and I’m pretty sure they’s out to get you.”

  Falconer took a deep breath, swallowed, looked down at the Bible he held in his lap. Power poured through the closed cover. He could feel it burning into him, clean as the sunlight streaming through the holes in the roof.

  “When I started back, I spotted some other fellers. That is, they spied me.”

  “Others? Which others?”

  “They spoke with a funny twang. Like foreigners or something. Got beards and skin burned farmer brown. Wearing homespun and black coats. Ain’t never seen the likes of them ’round here before. They asked did I know you. They asked for you by name. John Falconer.”

  Falconer looked over at the wall. The sense of rightness was overwhelming. “I want you to go back out there. Tell the men with beards there’s to be no bloodshed on my account.”

  “You listen to me now.” Carl pushed his face in tight between the bars. “Them fellers down by the hotel, I don’t know them by name. But I know their kind. I spent my whole life ’round the likes of them. They’s killers. They’s guns for hire. They’ll shoot you fulla lead and not give it a second thought. They’re as dead inside as this metal I’m holding.” When Falconer did not respond, the jailer’s voice rose. “I ain’t gonna let them do that to you!”

  “If you’re my friend,” Falconer said quietly, “you’ll go back and tell these newcomers that I am grateful for their being here in my hour of need. If my time has come, however, I don’t want to meet my Maker with more blood on my hands.”

  Carl stood there, his breath rasping in the sunlit gloom. “You can’t ask me to do this.”

  “I must.” Falconer rose to his feet. “Speak on my behalf. For the sake of a man who cares for you like a brother. For the sake of my eternal soul.”

  Chapter 31

  Vladimir no longer showed his normal languid ease. Instead, he frowned and squinted and kept one hand hidden within the folds of his cloak as he watched the small group approach. Jeb reckoned anything that managed to break this killer’s calm threatened his own chances of more gold. This time, when Cody stepped to the porch’s railing and cocked his pistol, Jeb did the exact same thing.

  There were four of them. Jeb did not know them by sight, for he had never been to their valley. But he had heard of them. And the fact that they had emerged was as weird as everything else about this strange hot day.

  The lead man was a graybeard and carried a musket that probably dated back to the Revolutionary War. But he held it like he knew which end meant business. And the determination in his pale blue eyes was as harsh as any Jeb had ever seen.

  The man looked at Vladimir and demanded, “I am here to ask only one thing. Whom do you serve?”

  Vladimir found that humorous. “And what makes you think I should answer you at all?”

  “Your words tell me all I need to know,” the graybeard replied. “You name your master by the death in your eyes.”

  “If you see death, old man, you see the reason why you should run while you still can.”

  “You think I speak of the gun in your hand?” The man smiled, as did two of his fellows. “I do not fear you, servant of death.”

  Vladimir frowned in confusion. Jeb could see the man’s mind scrambling, trying to work through words that did not translate into whatever tongue he had been born to.

  “Don’t pay them no mind,” Jeb told him. “They’s from Salem. Ain’t that right, old man? What brought you out of your valley?”

  The older man kept his eyes on Vladimir. “Go back to your world of darkness and shadows, servant of death. The one inside is a brother and a friend.”

  Vladimir turned to Jeb. “You know these people?”

  “Know of ’em. They’s anti-slavers, every one of ’em. Think they can hide away in their valleys like they’re a law all themselves.” Jeb aimed his ire at the one who seemed like the leader. Just looking at that old man left him feeling that the gold was slipping away. “There’s change coming, old man. The lawmakers down Raleigh way are about to class you anti-slavers as renegades. Same as Virginia. You know what that means?”

  “The future is the Lord’s,” the man responded. “There is evil enough for us to battle in this one day.”

  They stood on the porch and watched the four men turn away and proceed toward the courthouse. Joyner pointed across the street and said, “There’s two more of ’em up on the roof there.”

  Cody added, “And another on the roof opposite the courthouse. And three more in a wagon on the square.”

  “I saw them.” Jeb kicked at a cornerpost. “What are we gonna do now?”

  “Falconer’s still locked up,” Joyner replied. “He’s still up on anti-slaver charges. He’s still gonna swing.”

  “I am not accustomed to letting others do the killing for me,” Vladimir stated carefully. “There is risk that his allies will grow and he will be set free. This I cannot allow.”

  Jeb kept his eye on the square. “Who’s telling you what can or can’t happen, stranger?”

  Vladimir ignored the question. “I have seen men like them before. Back in the old country.”

  “Where might that be, then?”

  Vladimir ignored this question as well. “They cannot be bought, they fear little, and they fight hard.” He turned to Jeb. “Can you find more men?”

  “What, you gonna start a private little war in Danville’s central square?”

  Vladimir’s gaze was as empty as the sky overhead. “If I must.”

  “Sure, I can get you more hired guns. But it’ll cost.”

  Vladimir slipped a dark felt pouch from his inner pocket. He passed it over with the ease of a man who cared nothing for the contents. “The more men, the less risk these newcomers will oppose us.”

  Cody straightened. “Y’all just look over yonder there.”

  They looked out at the square, where a slight man hurried out of the alley that led to the prison. He headed straight for the gra
ybeard.

  “Ain’t that the other jailer?” Jeb asked.

  “Go to find your men,” Vladimir said to Jeb. “And fast.”

  Carl came back to the cell as if he were going to a funeral. “I done told ’em what you said.”

  Falconer breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  He dragged over his stool and settled it outside the cell. “Still say I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “No. You did right. Who did you speak with?”

  “Some old man. Got a gray beard near ’bout long as my forearm.”

  That could have been any number of theWachau men. But Falconer guessed it was Joshua, the farmer he had met that first morning. The old farmer had remained concerned over Falconer’s growing closeness to his niece. Ada Hart needed stability. Not some stranger with a scar and the fierce looks of a man who had carried such a past as Falconer.

  And yet the old man had come.

  Falconer passed his hand across his face. “Were there others?”

  “A whole passel. All decked out in homespun and black.” Carl lowered himself onto his little stool. “Won’t do you any good. They put their weapons down.”

  “Carl, look at me.” When the jailer did so, Falconer went on, “What if my entire life has been leading me to this hour? What if my last task on earth was to talk about God’s forgiveness with you?”

  “Don’t say them words,” the jailer begged. “I ain’t nobody worth dying for.”

  “What if Jesus wanted me here because I have been where you were and could reach you through our common past?” Falconer reveled in a freedom he had never known before. The freedom of laying down his arms, of letting go. “You are a brother in Christ. Who better than you should I give my life for?”

  The man’s features crumpled, and he put his face in his hands. “What do we do now?”

  Falconer settled his elbows upon his knees. “We give thanks.”

  Vladimir surveyed the cluster of filthy men. “Where did you find these?”